StreetViews
Special Western Canada Edition
February 2002
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Joe Wapemoose "The poor are with us always," Dead to finer feelings Poor folks like us don't worry Roosting on their shoulders For poverty's a builder Cash? We 'poor' may have it Ron Murdock The questions to ask about the welfare system are how much of a multi-million dollar business it has become and whether it provides a hand up to those on the system? Being on welfare can produce a handout mentality that robs people of self-respect and dignity. Who feels good about themselves when in line at a food bank or in a soup kitchen? Though the onus is on the individual to start the ball rolling in getting back on their feet, more opportunities can be added to those all ready in place. School up-grading, job re-training and other hands on experiences can provide welfare clients a chance to get into a career that has better pay and a brighter future. Most on welfare are looking for ways to make things better for themselves and families. Instead of having a system that stifles creativity, have one that rewards initiative for those wanting to better their life situation. A few years ago Picasso's Cafe in Vancouver provided young people who were on the streets a chance to develop talents in the food industry. They were trained as table servers, cooks and kitchen help. This is the kind of hand up in life that actually helps those who at one time may have felt their lives were pretty bleak. Opportunities like this have long term effects on people. Also, it is a practical solution in that something is being done as opposed to just sitting around and thinking on what policies can be put into place to "aid" those who policy makers think they are helping. No longer is it enough to just talk, but the time is at hand to start getting some viable solutions to help those living in poverty. TWO DAYS ON SASKATOON'S MEAN STREETS Dan Zakreski Senior Reporter, Saskatchewan News Network SHINNYING UP THE drainpipe and taking the high ground on the roof of the downtown church made sense at the time. The skunks, ducks and beavers drove me off the riverbank sometime in the middle of Sunday night. That, and the random crashing and shouting coming from the surrounding coulees as the Broadway kids stumbled drunkenly through the dense underbrush. It was a controlled retreat; I had scouted backup locations that afternoon. The block-long series of low, connected rooftops on Second Avenue looked promising viewed from the top of a First Avenue parkade. The thick bushes along the front of the Gathercole Building were shaded and aromatic, with natural pockets in the back of the clusters. I considered the ironic potential of sleeping on the roof of the Meewasin Valley Authority building on 19th Street. But staggering down the University Bridge, dragging my sleeping bag and trailing twigs from the hands-and-knees uphill crawl through the brambles searching for a trail, the church glowed like a gem on a green velvet cloth. A beacon, if you will. Any lingering misgivings about giving up my waterfront property slipped away when I stopped halfway and looked back across the river at the black mass of the woods. Ringed on the top with a thin line of lights from the houses on Saskatchewan Crescent, the east bank of the urban forest stretched inky and unbroken upriver to the distant twinkle of the Broadway Bridge. Very creepy. The church looked good. The thick row of trees, flush against its north flank, conveniently shielded the drainpipe leading to the low roof cut into the side of the wall about 12 feet above the flowerbeds. The lights were off in the houses across the street, the traffic sporadic coming onto Spadina. Twenty seconds from sidewalk to safety. Twin brick turrets framed the opening of the perch, affording a sheltered view of the street. Stretched out on my sleeping bag, I was invisible in the shadows. I drifted asleep looking up at an exquisite stained glass window set into the brick wall. The look of smug satisfaction must have attracted the magpie. It was very interested in something on my face, the way it stood 10 inches away with its head cocked just so looking at me sideways. It squawked, I jumped, my knapsack got knocked out of the nest and the two joggers coming from the river looked up at the noise. I waved. Who turned on the lights? The morning sun lit up the rooftop sanctuary. The trees sheltering the opening seemed suddenly leafless and the height of the roof placed me at eye level with drivers waiting for the light to change a half block away. I could hear voices and vehicles and birds and dogs. Laying flat, I stashed my sleeping bag and spare clothes against the wall, a cache to be retrieved at nightfall. Tightened my boots, pulled my hat snug and put on my sunglasses. Counting to five, I rolled onto my belly, gripped the metal edge of the roof wall and went to shinny down the drainpipe. I slipped. I hit the ground feet first, the fall broken by my knapsack. So that's where it landed. My feet made a sound on impact like when you jump on bubblepak, pop-pop-pop, the blisters going off in my boots like wet firecrackers. So I kicked the wall. It made sense at the time. So this was the assignment. Live on the streets in Saskatoon and take a completely subjective look at what's happening. Enter the city from its southern edge on a Sunday morning and head for the down-town, for the river. No wallet, no ID, no watch, no car, no cash, no phone. Just a knapsack, sleeping bag and flimsy story about passing through town on the way to Victoria. No direction known other than to find food and shelter. It took more than an hour to reach Broadway and Eighth Street, detouring through a couple dozen lawn sprinklers on route to stay cool in the plus-30 heat, getting spooked walking through empty manicured neighborhoods. And then suddenly the street split open, everything spread apart. It's a vision, coming up on our Broadway in full summer bloom, try and picture seeing it for the very first time, the explosion of motion and primary colors. A people-friendly street with red benches, awnings and shade trees, and virtually deserted in the blasting midday sun. There were cars and cyclists and couples sauntering from café to store, but the actual street life, the kids and the buskers and the hustlers, were nowhere to be seen. And precious little for water, either. It took the better part of the sweltering afternoon to find the one drinking water fountain in the Broadway area, tucked behind a low wall at the top of the bridge. That, and the fountains inside the Midtown, were the only sources of public water I came across. They became the oases in the east and north. I crossed the bridge and spent the balance of the afternoon scouting downtown locations to spend the night. A lot more walking than I'd expected, and by late in the day my feet were sending urgent messages that the old work boots were a bad choice in footwear. Limping, I went to the 21st Street entrance to the Midtown and sat next to the lone panhandler. The guy looked to be in his early 30s, fat, with a dirty beard and lank brown hair. I ran the hitching-to-Victoria story up the flagpole and it worked, he relaxed and started answering my questions. Is it safe to sleep on the riverbank? Where should I avoid? Is there a Sally Ann in town? Where can I get free food? What are the cops like? "Stay away from behind the Bessborough," he said, looking at my knapsack and then back at my face. "Where's that?" Method acting. "Down there," he said pointing at the postcard shot of the hotel, down at the end of 21st Street. "You're liable to get goosed in the bushes." And then he broke it down. How it's safe to camp to the right of the freeway and up the west side of the river, but not to the left down by the band shell. How to find the nooks and crannies along the east side shoreline, where you can start a small fire. How the Food Bank will give canned goods like pork and beans to take on the road, and that the Friendship Inn serves free breakfast and lunch, but not supper. How the cops are all right, just be polite and keep moving. And then he stopped talking. It took about twenty seconds to register that he wasn't going to say anything else. He wasn't being rude, he was just done. Move along. So I headed west, into the setting sun. The first angry invitations to a free meal in front of the west side community clinic appeared at Avenue F, at the intersection with 20th Street. Thick chalk printing on the sidewalk, blocked out and crisp. Our sisters shouldn't have to sell their bodies on the street to get enough to eat The police are killing our brothers Why is there no outrage? Why the apathy? Why the excuses? Organize, educate, agitate. The resistance has begun. Food Not Bombs. Free food. 3 p.m. All welcome. Hmmm. Free food. The guy with the Joe Dirt haircut asked me for a smoke when I was still pondering the message on the sidewalk. He just kind of floated up beside me and I did a doubletake, mistaking the knife scar sweeping up from the corner of his mouth as a smile. "What's this all about," I ask, pointing to the circle-A signature on the script. "Where you from man, don't you know?" He's weaving. I say that I've been on the road. "The cops take us and dump us out of town. Haven't you heard? Where are you from?" He pirouetted onto the street just as the light changed and I followed him across to the clinic. A small crowd of teens were gathered in front of a caddy loaded with bagels and vegetables. The bagels were stuffed with tomatoes, red peppers and lettuce and given out with a smile and no questions asked. I headed back for the downtown, stopped once at Gasoline Alley by a stranger asking me if I was hungry and offering me one of his two loaves of bread, apologizing that he left his Bible at home. The shadows were deepening in the woods along the riverbank when I crossed back up the Broadway bridge. I refilled my plastic water jug at the top fountain, soaking my hat and bandana, and then went downhill, to the water's edge. I could hear voices echoing in the woods, bursts of laughter from up the hillside. I caught glimpses of the river, twilight filling in the trees but the sand and rocks and water lit by the reflection of the moon and the lights from the buildings on the other side. I reached the edge and came upon a stony beach, for 200 metres I catalogued the flotsam washed up on the shoreline: a New York Yankees ball cap, a shirt, a couple of tennis balls, a syringe, a broken paddle, beer bottles. In dozens of places sections of embankment had collapsed, creating sofa-sized indentations filled with fresh grass. I settled on a spot about a half kilometre away from the University Bridge, stuffing my sleeping bag into the shallow slit in the bank and making a lumpy knapsack pillow. I must have drifted off because it was deep woods dark when the beaver did the cannonshot with its tail, about 10 feet away right on the shoreline. I scissored upright with the explosion, completely disoriented, and caught my head on the overhead branch. I'm not kidding. It went downhill from there. The beaver settled in a little upstream, this hulking wet shape in the moonlight chewing on a shin-sized log and making noises like a Rottweiler with a steak bone. That's when the skunks showed up. Two of them, young ones, and lucky for me. They were more curious than anything else, ignoring my hissing and twig tossing, scampering right up to my sleeping bag and mock shivering their tails before darting back to the water. They ran back and forth until the family of ducks floated by, and then they followed them down the shoreline. I sat on my haunches swatting bugs, wrapped in a sleeping bag, staring wide awake at the church lights winking across the water. This is what I saw when I skulked around Broadway and the downtown. After 48 hours wandering the streets, I still don't know how many real homeless people there are in Saskatoon, people who would still be living outside in January. Not a long time but I kept moving and paid attention, and I did form some impressions. I saw kids who had homes they might not like. People with homes who came to the Friendship Inn for free breakfasts. People partying and crashing on the riverbank, people sleeping on park benches. I saw able bodied men panhandling on 21st Street and Second Avenue. They were friendly but reserved when approached, sharing practical information but jealous of their time and spot on the street. They didn't want to be your buddy, at least not during office hours. They wanted free money. The conversations were brief and economical. But the truly homeless, the starving-guy-on-the-street corner? I missed them - and I was looking. I was able to eat two solid free meals a day and had access to clean water and shelter. Basic needs were easily met. People did not have to crawl around for food in the bins behind fast food restaurants on 22nd Street. That they did says more about the prevalence of substance abuse than the availability of food. So something other than an invasion of the homeless is going on. Let's start with the obvious, the east side of the river. This time of year the woods from Broadway to the University bridge are a free-for-all party zone, at least three square kilometres of undeveloped bush in the centre of the city. Ask anyone with a river-front view about what's happening on the bank across the street and they say sardonically that they can hardly wait for the Fringe. The twisting trails overlap and double back along the length of the treebelt, creating a dark playground when the sun sets. I saw police a half dozen times on Broadway, 20th Street and cruising by the river. I made eye contact as they drove by, was scanned and left alone. I've no idea what they saw or were looking for, and not once did I see them interfere with the party going public, not even on Broadway. I know because I followed the Broadway kids for a couple of hours one night. It was easy. They went from the 7-11 at Main Street to Victoria School, a shambling, noisy parade of teens with dreadlocks and Lyrca soccer gear and skateboards. Well dressed and well fed, with the requisite piercings and tattoos, they played hackeysack in front of the school and then broke off in groups of 10, filtering down to the riverbank. They gathered in a gully about 100 metres east on Saskatchewan Crescent, close enough to street level for their voices to carry clearly. The conversation was gleefully profane, talk of whisky and girls and adults and cars and pot, and it rolled and rambled before finally becoming disconnected. "Smoke a joint right here in front of us," a male voice drifted up. Laughter and female giggles and then an opaque challenge, "Right now, man, I'll go buy some weed and smoke you down." The banter went on in this vein for a half an hour, a stream of non sequiturs and crude sexual innuendo, ending abruptly with the sound of a bottle breaking and someone suggesting they needed more room. I followed after them and found their side paths leading down to the river, the nests of burned garbage and the pit with the dirty clothes and bottles. So I knew what I was getting with the east side. Recreational use of the riverbank. The west side proved a different story, the lines between the street and the home not as distinct. Revolution Now Food Not Bombs serves the free food. Food scarcity is a lie. The angry chalk script had spread to street corners up and down 20th Street in less than 24 hours. Inflammatory, political and anonymous. The woman working at the west side community clinic said the Food Not Bombs people asked a couple weeks earlier to use their kitchen on Sundays, but didn't leave any names or numbers. I walked west to the rail tracks that cut across 20th and disappear south in a slow arcing curve toward the city dump. The grass was cut back from the tracks to the tree line, revealing make-shift shelters with salvaged furniture and boxes. Broken glass glittered in the track shale. It was broad daylight and there was no one around for the first couple hundred metres. It felt spooky, like a crime scene, and I backtracked to the main drag. Twentieth Street in the daytime is a bustling concern with steady traffic, kids running around and adults going about their business. People are coming in and out of pawnshops and restaurants, shouting from balconies to friends on the sidewalk. It's easy to get carried along by the variety and energy of the street. Come nightfall, though, and the vibe changed and I became uncomfortably conscious of how far west I'd drifted, how the people had clotted into groups and the studied silence by the youths smoking in recessed doorways. I was aware of the signals sent by my shambling appearance and limping walk, of how different it felt from straying too far south on Broadway. So I walked, from the west side back to the east and then across the river. I figured out when to go where, and took the two days in snatches. Snatches of sleep, catnapping against a tree across from the courthouse, on the grass in front of Victoria School. Snatches of music, catching fifteen seconds of a song from a car at an intersection. Snatches of scent, warm pockets of perfume from the women passing by on the bridge. And always returning to the river. It's an amazing place, where you can disappear in front of a large building by taking three short steps down an embankment. Where you can tear off the front sole of a boot on a tree root and then find a sock just the right size to repair it washed up on the rocks. Where you can sit invisible in the bushes for hours, listening to the voices of people walking by. The unexpected challenge of the assignment was filling the hours. The freedom of not having to do anything specific turns sour when it becomes nothing specific to do. The day stretches long when you're up at 5 a.m. with no fixed address, especially when you're used to following a watch and a schedule and interacting with other adults. I used the time to figure out how to become invisible, walking slowly close to the side of buildings, looking out from beneath a pulled down hat and seeing only the hands and legs of people passing by. They didn't break stride. I walked the downtown in sections, working the grid like a giant crossword, until the sun cleared the big buildings and turned the pavement into an outdoor grill. The big CJWW clock said 7:00. Breakfast at the Friendship Inn wasn't until 8:30 and there was nowhere to go and nothing to do until then. So I walked and napped and made my way west, resting the last hour by the rink across from the Avenue G hall. And then what, after loading up on free boiled eggs and toast and coffee and cereal and muffins and doughnuts? I followed the general crowd spilling out of the Inn, shambling east toward the downtown. Keep moving and be polite. I was struck by the odd details, the watches and sunglasses on the men at the tables, the miniature teddy bears hanging from a kid's backpack. The stream of people split at Idylwyld, half branching off to the Midtown and the remainder fanning out across the south downtown. I finally ran into the Dream Team around supper on the second day. I was slouched on a bench by the Dairy Queen, sweating quietly and resting my feet, leaning against my sleeping bag and backpack, when I heard a disembodied, sarcastic voice behind me at the crosswalk. I'd heard stories before I went out about the marauding gang of older panhandlers who worked a full court press on women downtown. I was told that if I stayed on 21st Street for any length of time I'd catch their act. I turned to watch four men loosely circle a woman waiting at the light on Fourth Avenue. The biggest guy, wearing a rainbow shirt, leaned in close on the woman and said again, loudly, "It's hot out, eh," putting a leering twist on the last word. The light changed as he started to ask another question, hand extended, and she scurried ahead of the men, who sauntered across the street in a floating wedge. I followed them at a polite distance for a couple of blocks, watching them feint and bob with pedestrians before vanishing down the Spadina walkway. I caught the sunset on the second day from the bushes at the top of the University Bridge, sheltered in a natural cul-de-sac of hedges and drooping elms behind the President's house. Eating a tin of spicy fried mussels I bought from a 20th Street Chinese grocer with the toonie found in the bus mall, wiping my fingers on a scrap of newspaper, I watched the sun drop below the Robin Hood sign and glance off the roofs of the lower buildings, the shadows darkening the riverbank. I stayed hidden until the shapes of individual trees along the river became indistinct. I had to try it a second time, track down the Broadway kids with the lights out, just to be sure. The woods alongside the trail went completely black moments after I passed out of range of the last bridge lantern. After about 15 minutes of stop-listen-and-move I recognized the gnarly birch twisted across the trail and found the poplar sapling bent across the side path. I stood stock still and could hear the murmur of voices from deep in the bushes. Teen voices, rising and falling, talking about mixing scotch whisky with WD-40. I turned and slinked back to church. Six hours later I slipped out of the turret and woke the taxi driver snoozing in the parking lot. Take me home, I said, and it's a charge. I was asleep by the time he turned onto the bridge. From a Street Kid Made Good by Peter Clough How many moms does it take to raise a child? I met a guy this week who's had 20 of them. His name is Den. He's 25 and he called to tell me abut the one mom in his life who will always have a special place in his heart. Den had read last Sunday's column about Ellen Shonsta - the "scooter lady" - who night after night tows her trailer full of goodies around the West End to make sure that Vancouver's street kids are kept warm and well fed. Ellen is desperately looking for kitchen facilities. The church basement she uses will soon no longer be available. "Yeah, every once in a while I still think about Mom and all the stuff she did for me." says the voicemail message. Den went on to say that he is now happily married with a job and a bright future. He wanted me to know that if he had a million dollars, Ellen would have the best kitchen in the world. Den and Diane live in a comfortable duplex on the West Side. They have two dogs and six cats - though he shakes his head when you ask about a family. He's not convinced that this world is a suitable place for bringing up children. Sitting on the shelf next to the stereo is a portrait of himself as a little boy - the one and only picture from his childhood. He was three when Alberta social workers took him away. He says his mother lacked basic parenting skills - such as keeping him and his two brothers clean. She was also attracted to violent, alcoholic men. He learned later how his dad had thrown him down the stairs, how he'd attacked his wife with a sledgehammer and left her for dead. Over the next 10 years, Den lived in 18 different foster homes. He's familiar with just about every religion and value system in the book. "At the age of 11, I was baptized as a Mormon," he laughs. At 13, he ran away. He hitch-hiked to Vancouver and found Hastings Street. "I would walk up and down the street all night just so I wouldn't fall asleep," he remembers. It didn't take long for the new kid in town to discover the comparative security of Granville Street and the West End with it's sub-culture of teen age runaways. At night, he'd curl up in his thin blue sleeping bag in the doorway of a business along Granville Street. By day he was a "change chump," telling jokes to passers by in the hope that they'd be generous. What he got most of the time was "Get a job." "I was panhandling in front of the Super Valu, " he says " and was having a pretty bad night because I'd had a lot of people lipping me off. All of a sudden, this woman comes along and says: "Are you hungry? It kind of blew me away." He looked forward to Ellen's nightly visits. "It sounds totally corny but would really swell my heart. I couldn't wait for her to get to my group. I heard her being called mom but didn't know what to call her myself. So one night I looked at her and said "Do you mind if I call you mom? She said, 'Well, that is what everybody else calls me.'" Most of the time when mom came by, Den was high on crystal meth. He says she never passed judgement. "It was just a feeling she gave off and the way she spoke," he says. "We called her mom out of total respect and out of love. She had this unconditional love and so we returned it." There were special treats too - like the Christmas stockings filled with tooth brushes, socks, soaps and granola bars. He can't fully explain but he says Ellen taught him that life could be more than snorting speed and asking for change. Miracle of miracles, he also met the girl of his dreams - someone who wasn't a street kid herself. He quit his drug habit cold turkey. He got a job. He married Diane. To meet Den now, you'd never guess what a crazy childhood he's had. He's funny, articulate, mature. When he's not working nights at the gas station, he's writing songs and making plans with his buddy to start up a band. His big ambition is to go into radio. Ellen was delighted to hear that Den was doing so well. Lora Grindlay A woman known as "Mom" to hundreds of Vancouver street kids is being evicted for "disturbing" the lives of tenants in her West End apartment building. Ellen Shonsta was given an eviction notice last week by the manager of 990 Broughton Street where she has lived since March. She's been told to be out by Halloween but plans to fight the order. The notice claims conduct by Shonsta or her guests "is such that the enjoyment of the occupants in the residential property is unreasonably disturbed." Shonsta, who seven nights a week drives her scooter through downtown streets handing out hot meals, sandwiches, blankets and clothes to street people, received two written notices of violations of her tenancy agreement and numerous verbal complaints before being evicted. "I love this apartment and most of the tenants are very nice," she said. "But there a few who just don't like what I do and are afraid of the kids." Shonsta said the complaints arose because her guests, most often street people, are not welcome in the building. One complaint said a man who waited outside for Shonsta tried to open doors of tenants cars. Another visitor was blamed for urinating in a 7th floor hallway. Shonsta lives on the first floor. Shonsta, who started working with street youth in the late 70's in Calgary, said society doesn't accept street youth because they don't like the status quo. "Some of them look funny, wear their hair in dreadlocks and dye it funny colours and they have piercings," said the former foster mom. Most of the street youth have been rejected by their families and have been abused physically and emotionally she said. "They just want to be accepted for who they are. This is just another rejection," said Shonsta. Shonsta pays the rent with the help of the Broadway Church which supports her work. Various other churches and some restaurants donate the food she distributes. Earlier this year, Shonsta lost the use of kitchen facilities in a church basement and had to move from her seniors housing co-op that was too small. A staff member at the building yesterday would not comment without first speaking to the owners of the building. Kelly-Anne Riess I've lived in Saskatchewan my entire life. I grew up in the middle class. I don't know what it is like to go hungry - Hell, I don't even know what it is like to live without a TV. My life has been pretty easy-but that doesn't mean I haven't seen poverty around me, as I am sure everybody has. In Saskatoon there are many people downtown begging for spare change. Recently the city, along with some local businesses, did a poster campaign that tells people not to give money to these street people. People don't like to shop downtown because of these beggars. If these posters are successful, then the city hopes the buskers will go away because there is not money to be made on streets. There more consumers might start to shop downtown. Now people don't like buskers for a lot of reasons. No one likes to be approached by someone who looks rough and dirty. Potentially these people might be able to kick the crap out of the local consumer. There is a lot of fear from the shopper that the street person is going to demand more than he or she is prepared to give them (which is usually nothing). No one likes to get hassled. There is also the concern that if we give them money that they are going to spend it on alcohol or drugs. Well any street person can tell you that they are barely able to make enough to buy a can of soup or a cup of coffee --let alone a can of beer. Even if the street person can save up enough to buy some alcohol, if that's what they decide to do, then maybe they need the escape. Life can get damn hard. It is not easy for someone to remedy their situation by themselves. And the street person is usually alone. What employer is going to hire someone who has lived on the street for two years? It could be even more impossible to find a job if the person has no job skills. Who is going to help them get on their feet? Are you? Buskers are a reminder that poverty exists. It is a social problem. Society has standards and common goals. Almost everyone strives to get as much money as they can. For whatever reason people who beg or busk cannot conform to society's goals. The question is how do you solve poverty? We let people starve in the streets because we don't know what to do about it and many people would like to forget it even exists. Ron Murdock I left a job in Dawson Creek, B.C., as caretaker of a men's hostel, a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week job After three months on the job with only two days off, I went AWOL. After 3 weeks of visiting friends in Chetwynd, Terrace and Prince Rupert I pulled into Vancouver and stayed in Dunsmuir House for the weekend. On Monday morning, I visited Social Services. They knew about me going AWOL. I was told that since I had quit the job in Dawson Creek, I had to get a job and was not eligible for help past the first month. For three weeks I got no work. Finally a week before Christmas Day I started as a street vendor/writer for Spare Change Magazine. Even though the coin was good for the week, it failed to meet my monthly rent. So on the morning of December 28th, I was on the streets with my pack and sleeping bag heading to an overpass in Burnaby where I planned to camp overnight. My first night homeless passed without event except for freight trains passing every half hour. At 5:00 a.m. I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep because of the damp cold. I made my way to a nearby McDonalds. At 6:30 the restaurant opened and I was first in line. Over toast and hot coffee, I shook out the dampness in my body. Two hours later, after shaving in the restroom, I made my way back to downtown Vancouver. I found the Lookout where I was able to get a free shower. It felt good to get cleaned up and be treated with respect by the Lookout staff. At 8:30 in the evening I had nowhere to go, so I headed to Crosswalk and waited outside until midnight when the doors opened, not wanting another night under a bridge. Many had shown up for pastry and coffee, but few stayed overnight. Two or three nights in a row was all a person could stay. At 1:00 a.m. everyone was cleared out except for a half dozen overnighters. The bed was a thin mattress, wool blanket and pillow. Considering I had been up for 20 hours I felt like a king. I could have been outside in the rainfall. At 5:30 we were awakened, given coffee and pastries and sent off for the day. I slowly made my way up Cordova knowing there was no need to rush. Even in Vancouver things are slow at 6 a.m. Stopping at a corner for a red light, I looked down. Lo and behold I had found myself a loon -- a Canadian dollar coin. I felt rich as I now had money for coffee and toast at McDonalds without dipping into the change to buy the street newspaper. At Spare Change I bought as many copies of the issue as I could and told the boss about my predicament. He made a phone call to the Catholic Charities hostel and suggested I head there when it opened. I registered that evening and it was a great load off my mind that for the next four nights I knew where I would be sleeping. Each morning I picked up $7 in meal tickets, so I would get at least one good meal during the day. Over the New Year's Holidays my paper sales were good as people were still in a festive mood. The day of the Polar Bear Swim I sold close to $80. For the next 5 weeks things took a downturn. The festive mood ended when the bills came in and money was stretched to cover them. After my time was up at Catholic Charities, I contacted Dunsmuir House and they told me they had set aside 7 dorm beds for a $9 nightly rate. The desk clerk said to be in by 6:30 in the evening as the 7 beds went quickly, and they went on a first come, first served basis. This helped my vendor sales as it gave me something to aim for. But over the next few weeks life was tough as I couldn't plan more than 12 hours ahead in any given day. I was able to sleep every night at the hostel. but some nights after paying for the bed I had just enough money to start vending again the next day. It was like being stuck on a treadmill with no way off. One week all I had to eat was 2 Egg McMuffins and 2 pizza slices. One evening, just before the dorm opened, I was sitting in front of a movie theater with $2 in my pocket. I hadn't sold a paper in three hours and I was feeling rather desperate. One of the other vendors came along and stopped. He loaned me the $9 for the dorm bed and told me to get my ass over to Social Services the next morning. I figured I better listen as I couldn't handle being homeless any longer. The next morning with nothing to lose and an intent to rent form from Dunsmuir Hose filled out, I went over to Social Services. I explained that for 6 weeks I was homeless, didn't know how much money I was going to make in any given day and was getting sick of sleeping in a dorm. The social worker told me to come back at noon and pick up a rent cheque and support cheque. I felt elated. I would be able to move into a small room at Dunsmuir House, afford a decent meal, go to the movies and do other things that most people take for granted. It was a good feeling to have money in my pocket and my own room to go back to. It was nothing fancy. Just a bed, drawer, locker, sink and table but it was home. I could come and go as I pleased and not have to worry about someone getting into my gear. I could listen to the radio when I wanted to. Living on the streets of Vancouver was a tough experience. A few people went out of their way to help me. They are kindly remembered. But it felt like most people treat a homeless person like a street lamp or postal drop box, just another fixture to walk around. Even though living on the streets the way I did opened my eyes to a thing or two, I would not repeat the experience. It was too tough to handle. Warren Debler Flowers symbolize the wonders of the earth, Laughter Robert Doane, Jr. Over the past year, I've become more aware of the activities in this town with certain disdain. One problem that I've noticed is the poor excuse of a welfare system. Once a month, on the last Wednesday of the month, thousands rush down to obtain their welfare cheques, followed by a quick trip to the bank to cash them in. "Mardis Gras", as many merchants famously call this once a month charade, begins once again. Festivities begin and many next make a trip to our mall sized liquor store and stock up for a hard night of drinking and partying. All I can say is how happy I am my tax money is helping these individuals drink themselves into the gutter. What I have learned in this lifetime is that welfare is there for those who need it, but many of the citizens in the north abuse it. Kids are still not being fed right, people are still living on the streets, alcoholism is running rampant and we are all footing the bill. Generations of people have been living off this money and have no intention of ever getting off it, although they may claim that they are trying. I write this on a Friday, two days after Mardi Gras, and the bars could not be happier. Many welfare recipients have more than likely started drinking this late afternoon getting ready for that eventual stop at the bar to get rid of the remaining stash of cash they have. I do apologize to those who are actually utilizing welfare as it was originally intended. This is only for those who are making the system and you look bad. With so many welfare recipients, naturally crime is up and domestic disputes are up, so I propose a solution. For those who prove proper usage of their funds, they continue to receive checks to get by. For those who can't and have their lips stuck to a bottle, human resources should pay the necessary rent and bills for them and for food back to the old food stamps. If they want to drink, maybe, just maybe they could - gasp - get a job! Living such a restricted lifestyle may finally get those who have chosen to live their lives through the welfare system out and into the workplace. Another possibility is having people work around the community doing odd jobs. No work, no money. I'm sure after awhile some may find getting a job worthwhile. I state these concerns for I see many people throughout the day of all walks of life, working to just get by. They live check to check without any help and do what they have to do to raise a healthy family. These people deserve the support, not those wasting their lives away. Scott Haskins, columnist for the Edmonton Sun. It has been said that you can't judge a book by its cover. It has also been said that when you assume something, it can make as ass out of you and me...Amy Leslie would agree. "I will never again judge a person by their appearance," says Amy Leslie...Amy has a story to tell and it's worth hearing. During a recent cold snap Amy was driving her 1988 Topaz past the Overtime Broiler and Taproom on 111th Street when the car suddenly stalled. She turned the key to restart it. Nothing, not a sound..."It was about 20 below outside," says Amy. "And I had my little girl - five month old Brianna - in the back seat. I didn't know what to do. I don't know anything about cars, but my best guess was that all I needed was a boost."...It only sounds easy..."I tried to wave down a few cars but no one would stop," she says. "I tried to approach some of the patrons walking out of the bar and no one would help me. Some of them even walked the other way when they saw me coming. These were men wearing suits and ties and not one of them would give me the time of day," Amy says. "I couldn't believe it." Okay, maybe she wasn't dressed to the nines and driving a new Mercedes. Perhaps a mini skirt would have made a difference. Brianna was getting cold by now and Amy had just about given up on the idea of human decency. As a last resort, she was about to go into the bar and call a cab. But as she sat there stewing, a ragged looking man pushing a shopping cart knocked on her window. "Do you have a problem?" he asked. She was shocked at first and yes, even a little afraid. He was somebody with all his worldly possessions crammed into a shopping cart. This stranger may have been penniless but he was not heartless. "Here was somebody with a lot bigger problem than I had," Amy said. "He asked me to turn the key and nothing happened. Then he told me to pop the hood. What the heck. I had nothing to lose at this point." He looked under the hood then went to his cart and returned with a coat hanger. "I had no idea what he was doing," she says. But he did. The good Samaritan cleaned the connections on her battery and asked her to try again. This time the engine roared to life. "I was amazed," she says. Amy jumped out of her car and gave the man a hug. "Thank you," she said. Then she reached into her purse and pulled out a $20 bill. "I was going to give it to a cab driver anyway," she explained. "Oh, no thank you," he said warmly. "I was only trying to help. If I fell and you helped me to my feet, would I be expected to give you $20?" Amy smiled all the way home. But when she got there and turned the car off, she sat there for awhile and "had a good cry." She, too, had judged this man when he showed up, unsure of his intentions. Now she was grateful and a little ashamed. She hadn't even asked his name. "He was the kind of guy that society would look down on," said Amy. "People would laugh and call him names. This experience really opened my eyes." And maybe her story will open ours too. That's why she called. Money can buy cars, clothes and cell phones but it cannot buy class. You don't get respect, you earn it. Try to remember this the next time you see someone in trouble. Keith Morgan columnist for the Vancouver Province Liz Evans sees a human being where many just see a crazed and disheveled street person. "I think you have to look at them as you would want others to look at yourself. (There) but for the grace of God go all of us," says Liz, who spends her days housing 70 of the hard to house at the Portland Hotel on Carrall Street in Vancouver. "These people have faced horrible challenges but underneath they are just like everybody else, they have the same basic needs and they have the same feelings we all have." More than 60% of the residents of the restored east side hotel suffer from mental illness, while the rest are made up of alcohol abusers, prostitutes and a variety of other social misfits. "The Portland is their last resort other than the street, there is nowhere else for them to go because nobody will have them," explains the 34 year old psychiatric nurse, who quit a well paying hospital job eight years ago to bring hope to those with little. The Portland began as a Downtown Eastside Residents Association project to save old hotels and provide accommodation for the homeless. The focus changed when agencies began sending their most troublesome clients. "We get people who have been disruptive and those that don't stick to the rules imposed in some places. We have rules too, but they are few and we try to be flexible." Asked if this posed a challenge, Evans smiles and explains that it is not as difficult as you might think. "Most describe these people by their addictions and behaviour and miss seeing the whole person. Here, we try to create spaces around people rather than force them into a space that requires them to change and achieve certain goals in order to stay." And they respond positively to that regime and tend to take care of each other. "I'm not saying we don't have problems, but basically they are nice people who have faced rough challenges. Whatever people have done to survive in this pained community, I don't think it should be thrown back at them as a reason not to have housing." Liz says her measure of success is not necessarily seeing a tenant put a wayward life totally in the past. When a daily drinker cuts back to merely bingeing on Welfare Wednesday, she sees a person who is happier with life and that is a success story. Liz's compassion and dedication recently prompted the Registered Nurses Association of B.C. to award her the 1999 Health Advocacy Award. She blushes a little when it's mentioned because she says she is just doing her job. "My experience here has been incredibly humbling. I have never felt so lucky in my life to have met so many kind people that have given me such a lot. RonMurdock I have taken notice during recent campaign trails of the various candidates promising to take action on the issue of poverty. Yet I wonder if they are fully aware of the entire scope of the problem. I am beginning to wonder if this isn't one more way of getting votes. It seems as if trends come and go, the latest one being to take up the rights of the poor. To fully understand what the poor go through, it is essential "to be there and done that" at least part of ones life. When one has a home to go to and good meals everyday - nothing wrong with those in themselves - they can be insulated and not have a clue of what the people they claim to want to do something for actually go through. Will it be that dealing with poverty will be one more fad to be followed by another one in the future? There will have to be a major overhaul on how poverty is approached as the vicious cycle keeps on spiraling downwards. The question to ask is how to have concrete solutions to the poverty crisis. The bottom line is that a hand up is needed more than a handout, but the person on the receiving end needs to develop a honest desire to help themselves first. Even though the onus is on the individual to start the ball rolling to get back on their feet, resources are there for them to use. Organizations are there to help out, but after listening to the same stories day in and day out, they may begin to wonder if they are part of the solution or part of the problem; especially true with all the red tape that needs to be dealt with. It is hard, but some try to maintain as much of a positive attitude as they can under the circumstances. Putting aside the cynicism factor for a moment, they ask if they weren't there how much worse would things be? I wonder if one concrete way of battling poverty head-on is to provide school upgrading or offer job retraining courses such as welding or industrial first aid. The benefits would be the person developing more self confidence and a skill that would help them seek employment in the job market. The bottom line in dealing with poverty and how it affects people is to provide practical solutions and not some vague promises from someone who hasn't walked the walk. Nadine Pedersen I have a thing for picking up hitch - hikers. Not all of them, but quite a few of them. I pick up or pass people on instinct. So far my intuition has done me justice: my biggest problem with hitch - hikers is that a lot of them are boring to listen to, but not all of them. Last weekend, while coming back from a day out of town, my friend and I picked up a hitch - hiker just outside of Terrace. His name was Terry. I'm guessing he was in his sixties. He was hitch - hiking to Prince Rupert with the hope that he would find work in one of the canneries. He was travelling from Prince George. Saturday was his fifth day on the road. You read that right, his fifth day on the road. As he had very little money and couldn't afford hotels, he spent his nights in coffee shops. One night, a park warden, after watching Terry on the side of the highway all day, gave him a lift to a cabin where he spent the night. In the 450 miles between Prince Rupert and Prince George, Terry stood under a scorching sun, in hail and in rain. He also had people give him the finger, yell epithets at him, stop their cars down the highway and wait for him to get close before taking off, and in some cases veer off the road and lunge at him with their vehicles. Why? My guess is because he looks poor. And as we all know, poor people are social leeches who deserve to be mistreated by those of us who can afford a car, insurance and gas. I mean, if we can afford to keep a car, then obviously we have money, which usually means we have a job, which means that we are naturally above all those people who don't have jobs. Sorry, I hate to break it to all of you fishers out there whose boats are tied up and all of you who are waiting for things to pick up at the mill and at the Prince Rupert Grain Terminal, but you're not as worthy as you would have been say, two years ago. That's right, you heard me; if you're not making money because there are no fish, no trees and no grain, then obviously there is something seriously wrong with you and you deserve to be treated like garbage. Just like Terry was. If you lack the education to get a desk job, that's your fault too. Why didn't you think about that 20 years ago when you were told you didn't need an advanced education to get a good paying job? What is wrong with you people anyway? You're just a bunch of good for nothing sub humans who don't have any feelings, who deserve to be the object of contempt for those of us who do have jobs. Sheesh. Talking to Terry made me realize that the people in their cars and trucks who feigned running him over, those people who were giving him the finger and calling him names, they were justified in doing what they did. So justified that I've decided from this day forward I am never going to give a ride to another less fortunate human being ever again. I'm going to emulate those motorists and try run older people off the highway. I'm going to stick my middle finger straight up at the sky and hope that if I'm ever again at the side of the highway because I can't spare the money for a bus, people won't do the same thing to me. |
Wyoming Coalition for the Homeless
907 Logan Avenue
Cheyenne, WY 82003-1232
(307) 634-8499